During his first address to the nation since the election, President-elect Barack Obama, after answering numerous inane questions about getting a dog, called Friday for an extension of unemployment benefits. Awesome. Seeing as how a good chuck of our friends and associates are SOL on the job front, this comes just in the nick of time. In related news, further evidence of recession time came to light today after the government reported that the unemployment rate had skyrocketed from 6.1 percent in September to 6.5 percent in October. Ouch. (Sacto Bee)